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London no chance of taking Games: Coates

Ben Horne

International Olympic Committee vice-president John Coates has rubbished reports suggesting London could be asked to take over from Brazil and host the 2016 Games.

Coates two weeks ago described Rio's preparations as the worst he's experienced, but regardless of how shambolic the circumstances might be, the IOC are adamant there is no alternative.

The London Evening Standard carried a report suggesting that London, the host of the last games in 2012, was being sounded out to step in for Rio.

Coates described the next meeting of the IOC Co-ordination Commission at the end of September as "critical" but at the Australian Olympic Committee annual general meeting in Sydney on Saturday, he said there were no contingency plans in place.

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"That's (London) a nonsense. There's absolutely no plan for London as an alternative. Absolutely no plan B," Coates said.

"There's no alternative of going back to another city. The villages are sold. Same as saying come back to Sydney. Our village is gone. But we will work through this and get to Brazil."

Coates said it was up to the IOC international federations, the organising committee and three levels of government in Brazil to band together and save the Games.

"What gives me confidence is we've now got (expert) people permanently on the ground," he said.

Coates, who is also the AOC president, denied that the seemingly dire situation in Brazil was impacting on the domestic body's ability to secure a powerful television rights deal and important sponsorship deals ahead of the Games.

The AOC hopes to announce a television broadcaster for Rio within the next month and Coates admits a delay in securing a deal had impacted on sponsorship.

"I think the difficulty is the time zone. That's led to the delay in television rights being sold," he said.

"The delay in television rights does impact us because I think of the six principle advertising partners that Channel Nine had for the last Games, five of them were also or became our team AOC sponsors.

"There's an alignment and once the rights are sold I think that will be an important impetus to our sale program."